XC NPS 3 - Tracton Woods - Race Day Rambling

First race of the 'season', this was always going to be an interesting one. 'season', in the mighty inverted commas of mystery, because so far, it really hasn't been much of a season at all.

Pre-season training literally consisted of 3 weeks of what I would call, proper training, the rest mostly spent rolling around the floor stretching, or on the foam roller. From August 2011, my knees have been giving me grief, and been putting a mighty limiter on what training I can do before they blow up. After many, many labouring weeks and months of trying to get anything useful out of the NHS, I ended up with a MRI scan on one knee. Turns out there's some tissue growth disorder in and around my knees, which, according to the 'specialist', is actually fairly common in kids my age, but only flares up in those that do excessive exercise. The bone is growing too fast for the tissue, so the tissue is stretched, and then you go and do a load of training on top of that, tightening the muscles, so the tissue is stretched even more and that pulls everything every shape. Not good. What fabulous preparation for the season... and that's not to mention breaking my wrist 10 weeks ago aswell!

Thankfully I 'will grow out of it', the advice for now was 'not to push it to the limit'... oh the casual ambiguity around what could potentially destroy me future in cycling/world domination.

Race day began at 0030h with Barry and Brian arriving back from their midnight track walk. I seemed to have had fallen asleep (sleeping bags are for wimps), only to be awoken with Barry's torch flashing into my tent and him talking to me. At least this meant I could finally get me sleeping bag and also got kindly donated an air mattress thing, it was boss, many thanks to the Kellett Krew/Team Maxbo. After that I got to sleep fairly quickly, and other than the noisiest birds you've never heard in your life waking me up about a hundred times, sleep was good.

Woke up for a final time at 0730'ish and got some breakfast in before heading away for a practise lap (once I'd ridden through what seemed like every lump of cow excrement in the mighty camping field to get to the road. Irish races, can't beat 'em). Was fairly awesome being out on the track at this hour, had loads of uninterrupted time to ride about every line possible and not possible alike. 'Got 'em dialled' as it could be said...

Unfortunately this was next to no use when the race began. Turns out racing with 30+ S2 men is fairly different than racing with 3 or 4 U16s. With U16 racing, most of the time you're on your own, or in groups of 2 or 3 max, so there was never any worry about missing your lines, whereas S2 turned out to be absolute chaos off the start! Fun nonetheless! Additionally, it kind of added to the madness as I realised that I'd forgot to put contact lenses in about 5mins before the start. This resulted in me running back to the tent, hoking me contact lenses out of the bag at the other side of the tent while trying to keep my dirty shoes out of the tent. Got them out, got positioned nicely infront of Brian's door mirror, think I remembered which one was for the right and which was for the left, and got set on getting the right one in with my muddy fingers. Proceeded to get the left one out of the packet, onto the tip of my finger and heading towards my eye, BAM, gust of wind, goodbye contact lens. Brilliant. Tried looking about, but then realised I was looking for a transparent contact lens in a cattle field and had about 2mins to the start of my race and decided to screw that and get to the start line.

Had absolutely no idea what to expect, from myself, and my severe lack of training. Was hoping I hadn't lost much fitness from last year, but knew the chances of it increasing were terribly slim, and this year, as a Junior rather than U16, our races are twice the duration, so anything was possible, but the odds seemed stacked towards the disastrous end of the scale.

Track started with a 2-3min fire-road climb. Thankfully I got clipped in and off the line well, and was top 15 coming up the climb. Content with this, took it easy and made a few more places before the trail entrance, but didn't exert myself, plenty of time yet. Then we got to the 2nd bit of singletrack, and the rider infront of me slides out on a root. Chaos squared. I try tripoding the bike round him but proceed to almost fall over myself. Not quite the start I wanted. Got past anyway, and got motoring to catch the boys infront that had made a bit of time now.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847053584&k=K4qT6wj

Got caught up with them, and was probably sitting in top 7 or so now, but still not really feeling as if I was exerting myself. Saw BanbridgeCC man Simon Curry 2 men ahead, so got up to him and sat behind him for a while, knowing that he's a steady rider who consistently finishes top 3 in S2s, thinking if I can sit on his wheel for the rest of the race, that'll be more than enough to ask for in my first S2 race. This went well, until I took a different line to him coming into a technical section, and it was quite a bit faster, so I ended up coming up on his right hand side on a bit of trail only wide enough for one of us! Luckily averted disaster and squeezed infront of him. From then on, I rode steady, and before I knew it I had caught what seemed to be 1st and 2nd position, but couldn't know for sure whether there were riders in my race ahead of them, or if this was the front of the race! Thankfully at the start of the 2nd lap we passed S1 rider Lance McCarthy, and after trying to tyre buzz him for a while, he let me past and confirmed that they were the 1st S2 riders to go past him. Sitting in 3rd then, sweet.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847054973&k=VXnLzd3&lb=1&s=A

Rode for a bit longer, in 2nd place coming up a windy straight, so thought it'd be a good idea to speed tuck in behind the man in-front and save some energy. This was a fantastic idea, just a shame about the execution: he slipped past a stump on his right, but my front wheel was slightly to the right of his rear, and before I knew it i'd hit the stump and was lying on my face with the bike ontop of me, still clipped in. Wasn't sore, just a little offputting when you're trying to stick with the man infront but you're lying on the ground on your head! Got back on and caught him again and got by him and I was out on my own. Kind of couldn't believe it, was wondering if I'd completely screwed up my pacing and was going to blow up badly. Didn't blow up, probably actually went a bit faster over the end of the 2nd lap and into the 3rd lap. Passed some more S1s, but then coming out of a corner I went to pedal and nothing turned!! Disaster! Hopped off the bike and tried to see what was up. Rear derailleur cage had well and truly snapped, and the chain had jumped through the cage and was basically fooked.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847046634&k=mb6KVvs

Was able to bend some bits back together and get the chain re-routed and semi-working again. Unfortunately from here on I only had one gear, and when I applied any sort of force the chain was skipping.   Due to the time it'd taken to get the bike going again, I'd slipped back into 3rd place, but only by a little bit. Got going as much as circumstances allowed , and got back into 1st, and made some ground on the rest of the field again. Then about 1/3rd of the way into my 4th and final lap, the derailleur blew up for good, and I was faced with 2 options. Run the rest of the lap and finish the race, I still had good time over the S2 and Junior field, or run the rest of the lap and finish the race. Quitting wasn't an option if you'd seen the amount of food i'd eaten over the weekend... I needed to burn the rest of it off.. haha.

So inevitably S2 riders started coming past me as I ran every uphill and flat and freewheeled and pumped my way on every decline. Then the 1st junior rider came past, and I'd lost both my S2 and Junior 1st place. Shame. Ran and freewheeled on, ended up 2nd Junior and 8th S2, so altogether not the worst performance, but just a bit of a shame that it almost certainly could've been a 1st in both categories!!

I'll not even begin to explain the aftermath of the race, but basically running a lot of a mtb lap with a bike, up steep inclines, bent over to hold onto the bars, turns out isn't such a good idea for your back! Really struggling to stand afterwards, but then I couldn't even bend down to sit in a seat, not desirable! Lay against a car for a while, got some iBuprofen gel on and about half a can of deep freeze on, and then finally made it into a seat. Couldn't move for about the next 2 or 3hrs, meaning I missed getting up onto the podium to get me photy taken, gutted.

It's now 3 days later and I still can't really bend down, back is still mega sore, but I can walk again, and it's getting better, so it's all good!

Track was amazing, big up the MBCC for doing such a super job of organising the race. Team Kellett was amazing, huge thanks for the lift down and back again, and packing up my tent when I was paralysed, and everything else. Also thanks to team BCC - Simon and James Curry and Gar Mckee for providing the morning's craic and helping the tent-packing efforts of the evening.

Also thanks as always to Rynopower for providing all me race fuel, and Green-oil for keeping everything running smoothly (unfortunately they can't fool-proof your derailleurs though..)

Monty, out.

NPS 3 - Tracton Woods - Saturday Night

  So this is kinda cool. Cool. Good choice of words Dave, for not only is it rad to the max, man, its also a bit chilly. Lit only by the 'light' (loosely termed) of my windy uppy torch, heated only by mother nature herself(well, a base layer, 2x t-shirt, jacket, fleece, coat, tights, 2x tracksuit bottoms and a buff are probably helping a little too) and with only my brain, or indeed lack of it, for tonight's entertainment, we're in for an adventure tonight. Not a b&b like all the young felines nearby, but like many's a great men gone before me, *insert famous explorer names* , I'm in a tent. And I've just dropped a bit of sweetcorn or a pea, it's kind of too dark to determine which. Balls. Princess and the Pea vol. 2 - Princess and the Sweetcorn. I joke, if the ground was flat enough to feel a bit of sweetcorn I would be more than happy. Rather, it's consistency right now is that of a lumpy protein shake, with added cow dung.

  It's 22:58, and I really intended to be in 'bed' by now, but with that shiny gleam of over-assurance, I told Barry and Brian that I had everything out of the car that I needed. Which I guess in a sense is true, as I have my dinner, clothes, bicycle and iPod. I guess I just overlooked one minor detail, my sleeping bag. Now normally this would be a simple case of popping over to Brian's tent(we've got an awesome 3 tent village set up here) and asking him for the car keys. Unfortunately the night before a race is never that simple, and Brian and Barry have decided to head off into the forest on a track walk* (yes, it's 11pm..) so although the car is about 10ft from me, the keys are probably about 2miles away at this stage. Bummer. Who needs sleeping bags anyway?

  Barry picked me up at around 2.30pm from my house, we met Brian in Navan, and many, many hours, a couple of scenic detours, 3 toilet stops, 2.5L of water, 4 rice cakes, 2 sandwiches and half a bag of leaves later, we rolled into one of Cork's very finest cattle fields, or for this weekend, the venue of XC NPS 3 - Tracton Woods. 3 tents were erected with only the finesse of 2 of Cork's hungriest men, and another one who wanted to go and ride his bike.
  Believing it was the smart option, I got into my tent asap, got naked(its a whole different experience in a tent, probably not worth putting one up and trying it though) and got into my cycling gear to go for a practise lap. Hopped on me bike and got going. This was awesome for about 5mins of cycling up am open fire-road when I could see where I was going. Once I turned into the trail, or the dark hole that seemed to vaguely resemble a trail entrance, not a thing could I see. By this stage it was after 9.30pm and the sun has long headed over to the other side of the planet. A 'practise' lap was done nonetheless, but literally by feel rather than sight. As I lie here, I have no idea what the track looks like, or where good lines are. Which leads me to question the purpose of that practise lap, ah well, it was fantastic fun!
  Thankfully the track is as dry as my throat will be by the time I've finished me race: grip is very plentiful, which was handy considering I couldn't see anything. I felt many roots. I therefore assume there are many roots. Most definitely a track for full suspension. All the same, it seemed absolutely fantastic; lots of fun bits between the bucking bronto style onslaughts of roots. Most definitely looking forward to another practise lap in the morning when I can see.. assuming I make it through to the morning. Nah, I joke, it's lovely in this tent, there's fudge all wind, dare I say it: no rain, not much noise, and its really not that cold.

  But if Brian and Barry could come back anytime soon now that would be nice. My wee toes are a bit chilly.

  Maybe sleeping bags are kind of useful.. or even just a mat like the dog below

That's all for now, til tomorrow, Monty, over and out.

 *Barry and Brian Kellett are brothers, not gayboys.

Here Goes..

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It's been too long. I'm completely at fault, I know, and for that I apologise *insert excuse*.
I've found myself heading onto this Blog somedays when slightly bored*, to find no changes. Then it sort of strikes me that it couldn't be updated, because it's me that updates it.. Adur. So here I am, here's an update, ka-boom. Please feel free to pop round and personally give me a kick up the ass if my next update takes this long.

*but not properly bored because only boring people get bored..

I have many stories for you to be honest, so many that I'd need a proper book to fit them all in, I guess this is the problem with no posts within the last month! I'm sorry, ok! Here are some photos and short stories anyway -

This is a photo of Rob Deegan upon a boat. Good times. This was down at the Avon Ri Hotel down in Blessington at an U23/Junior development camp. Had a fairly good time at this, little run on the Saturday, followed by circuits, nutrition talk, ride over to hotel, dinner, training talk. Then came general tippin' the place with Matt Adair and Rob Deegan, general running about the grounds of the hotel place in pitch darkness, active recovery, yeh? Found a zipline, lake with a pier, yachts, canoes, a bar, a playpark etcc. Playpark was a fabulous idea until we bailed down the slides and ended up with soaking bottoms for the rest of the night. Sunday started with porridge for breakfast, this did nothing but reinforce my strong dislike of porridge and leave me feeling pretty dodgy for the rest of the morning, but thankfully the rest of the day was pretty easy going so I'd nothing to worry about... I wish. The next part of the day consisted of a 3hr road spin. Bare in mind at this stage I have not begun any training whatsoever as I'm trying to get these injuries out of the way first.'Fair enough', I thought, a 3hr zone 2 ride should just about leave me standing afterwards. About 20mins into the ride, we're going about 25mph and I realise this is going to be no easy spin. It only got worse, worse and worse after this. So I tried having a little fun. We were doing hill intervals on a hill with those big old 10ft long speedbumps, so coming back down the hill I was grabbing as much air as possible. Banter was being had, until about the 3rd time I came down the hill, you know how it is, you can't resist descending a little faster every time, trying to get as much air as possible.. fabulous idea this was, right up until I was cruising through the air, looking down and seeing the backside of the speedramp passing by under me. Then the nose starting dipping and I really started getting scared. Ended up overjumping one of the babies by a good couple of feet. Flat landing the road bike after being in the air for over 10ft, not good by any stretch of the imagination. Must practise road bike scrubbing. Or not trying to jump in the first place... there's an idea! But yes, on with the torture that was the 3hr spin. We were pedalling at 24mph into a headwind on an incline at one stage? Well, I say 'we', by this I mean everybody else, as I just had to sandbag for the last hour. Someday I shall post on the concept of sandbagging, as it really isn't as easy going as it appears! It was a strange experience for the last hour of the ride. My legs should have been absolutely screaming their little heart out at me, but it was raining heavily, about 1 degree centigrade(which is about -50 when riding at 20mph into a headwind) and pretty windy. So rather than being able to feel my legs burning, I couldn't feel them at all, and please believe me, that feeling was no more desirable. Overall a pretty terrible ride, but it was worth it to hear the training talks and general craic that was had in the hotel. Oh, and to see this class statue on the right. Please leave a comment with your ideas of what on earth the kid is doing..

As you can see, this is not a good situation to be in. For any of you non-bikers out there, the deelybopper sticking out from the handlebars is in fact my gear cable: it should not be there. Thankfully I've always wanted to own a singlespeed bike, so I wasn't really that annoyed, I just would've rather have had the choice of deciding to buy a singlespeed bike, than being landed with a snapped gear cable 10miles from home!! Luckily, I was about 3miles from a local hardware store at this stage so with the mech stuck in the heaviest gear and some major hills to get over, I gave her stacks. Got to the hardware store and borrowed a screwdriver and rammed the limiter screw on the mech in until the bike was fixed in 3rd gear. Then continued to do about 40miles in 3rd gear.
Suddenly I seem to have gone off the idea of a singlespeed..

Crusing along the road down to Scarva, thought I'd head out Portadown direction on the Towpath. Turns out the towpath was a river.. Even better!! Made a good 3 attempts at cycling through this, but it was just getting ridiculous, it just kept getting
deeper and deeper. Thankfully there was a bit of wind on my back, so when it got so deep that I couldn't pedal without getting a footful of water, I was able to just keep the pedals level and the wind blew me along. But then the water started creeping up to the shoes even when the pedals were level, mostly due to the waves that were forming because of the wind! So with the bike's best interests in mind, I wasn't fond on getting the bottom bracket submerged, we turned back. Turning was much easier said than done, the towpath is only about 6ft wide at the best of times, and there's proper river on either side, but when path is covered by river, you can't see where the edges of the path are, and trying to manoeuvre a road bike through 180 degrees without being able to turn the cranks because of the water, while being blown to bits by the wind, is really quite an experience. I see a new sport evolving? haha. Get the speedos out.


In this photo(apologies for the quality, or lack of it) you'll spot a Jaffa Cake in the most unusual of places. How it managed to end up there, I know not. The other day I was just about to start a turbo session, but was a little peckish. Headed up to the kitchen and there was a glorious box of Jaffa Cakes in the top drawer. Mmmm. I took two, ate one, and set the other one ontop of the headset while I put my shoes on. Absolutely psyched for Jaffa Cake no.2 after eating the first one, looking forward to jumping on the bike and getting it and getting stuck into a good turbo session.. Head over to the bike, could Jaffa Cake no.2 be seen? Defffinitely not. Spent the next 10mins looking for the little piece of Jaffa joy, looking in every corner of the room, under every box and various other junk scattered around the room, telling myself 'it couldn't have rolled this far', but not being one to give up, searching on anyway. Finally, I think, 'screw it, I'll make do with no Jaffa Cake'. Hop onto the bike, look down, and the very bugger itself is sitting pretty balancing between the gear cable and the frame. Can you believe that? Losing Jaffa Cakes #firstworldproblems..

Getting into the Christmas spirit with pro Vitus rider Gareth Mckee, good times. In poundland waiting for mother one day and spotted a load of Christmassy hats, normally I wouldn't be one to spend a penny, but for the sake of putting a few smiles on peoples faces out round the roads with a Santa hat on my helmet, I got myself the biggest looking hat I could find. A bit of insulating tape, some duck tape and a bit of Blue Peter magic and I had myself a new helmet..

I got a laptop for Christmas, cheers Mother and Father. Luckily for you brilliant readers, this, in theory means more updates(Ohhh goody, I know). Mum got a camera that takes HD Video too, so sooner or later I'll get a video up, once my legs begin to work again. Regarding the lack of legs situation, it was getting better, with 45 odd hours of rehab work ontop of a similar amount of swimming and zone 1 cycling I was really giving my legs no excuses to get back into working order. Unfortunately all my muscles are still stupendously tight, and my knees are still fairly banjaxed. But all is better, if only slightly, than October, progress is progress, and we like progress :)

This photo has nothing to do with bicycles, other than you've found it here, on a bicycle Blog. I was just waiting for me Ma the other day, and saw this guy bating it down the main street in this West Coast Customs special. Absolute boss beyond measure. Ridin' solo. Pretty sure that's not legal, but who's gonna catch him when he's upon a powerhouse of a steed like that!

For now, that's all. Phew, says you. If you come back tomorrow there'll be something new though, I promise. Monty, out.